


Strong as Death

by Nemainofthewater



Series: Operation: reward ThebanSacredBand for surviving exam season [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coffee, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Introspection, Names, and humorous, but not physically, ora's there in spirit, slight 4x12 spoilers, this was meant to be fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 13:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18447287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: The Monster is obsessed with names.





	Strong as Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThebanSacredBand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/gifts).



> This was meant to be a fluffy one shot about the Monster wanting a name for Starbucks. It turned into an introspective angst filled slightly incoherent and mildly confusing fic.
> 
> Sooooo ThebanSacredBand, when you said you would like a fluffy story as a gift... know that I fell at the first hurdle. Oops?
> 
> Title from this quote (back when I innocently thought this fic was going to be about coffee, more fool I):
> 
> Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.  
> -Unknown

The obsession starts after friend-notfriend Quentin says it can’t have any more tequila. It likes tequila. Likes the way that it makes the world blur and spin until it can’t see anything anymore, and it can’t feel the pain and the yearning whenever it looks at Quentin. Tequila is wonderful even if it doesn’t like the way the body’s head hurts after it drinks it. But that’s easily fixed. Taking one of the bad tasting white pills that a terrified pharmacist gave it when it stormed into Walgreens makes the pain dull.

 

And the pharmacist’s blood looked so pretty against the white of the floor. It’s sure that it could play join-the-dots with the blood splatter if it had enough time. Join-the-dots it a game that humans play, where you look at the dots and see a picture. Brian explained the game it when it was bored bored bored and it needed something to do while Brian shut his eyes and stayed still for hours. It’s not a very interesting game though. The Monster can just see the dots.

 

If it takes even more pills, and some powders and some of Josh’s cakes then the pain fades even more and sometimes it can see things in blood splatters and Quentin’s hair and in the fluffy white clouds.

 

But Quentin takes tequila away and stops it from taking more of the pills so now it’s stuck with the aches and the pains and the shivers and the itching. Everything was easier back in Blackspire, with Ora to look after it and sing it to sleep. She always sang the best songs and they played hide-and-seeks for hours together. It likes hide and seek. It can always find the best hiding spots: sometimes Ora couldn’t find it for _days_.

 

It’s being brave though. Venturing out into the world to find what was lost, what was taken from it. Ora would tell it stories about brave knights before bedtime, and sometimes it would fantasise about it: going out into the world on a Quest like Ora did.

 

She would always end the story in the same way:

 

“And then,” she would say, “At the end of my Quest I came to Blackspire. And I found my reward. And it was you, my love, my light. You were what I was searching for.”

 

(It misses Ora. It was angry when it possessed her and betrayed and hurt that Ora didn’t want to stay with it when she was everything. But now… now the anger’s gone and there’s no Ora).

 

It misses being called my love. My love isn’t a name, but it’s close to one, and it always makes it think of Ora and endless days playing and being safe and warm and loved. It tried to get Quentin to call it my love once he stopped being notBrian but every time it asked, he would look sad and refuse to talk. It doesn’t want Quentin to be angry at it. He might leave and then it would have no friends none zero.

 

Maybe it’s because my love isn’t a proper name? People have names like Brian and Quentin and Eliot and Ora. It wants a name. It can’t remember its name. But it must have one because that’s what parents give their children, names. It watched all ten seasons of Friends one week when Quentin was busy and didn’t have enough time to play with him. And the friends thought that names were special. They ask their friends and have fights over who they name the baby after and spend hours and hours poring over baby books.

 

(Everyone calls it the Monster. It doesn’t want to be a Monster because monsters are what the knights kill in Ora’s stories. And it doesn’t understand how it can be a monster because monsters are evil and have huge fangs and are made out of shadows and his body is just a boring normal human one)

 

But people can choose their names as well. It’s seen it on the television. It isn’t good at choosing names though: when it went in to Starbucks to get coffee, dark and sweet and something that soothed the itchiness of its skin, and told the person behind the counter that its name was Jennifer (like Jennifer Anniston and it spent so long deciding which friend it liked best) then it could see the scorn in their eyes. It knows that they were laughing at it, so it broke its neck.

 

And then there was screaming and people running away and cars that made bright noises and it didn’t get any coffee at all.

 

The next time it went to Starbucks it was ready and told the barista that it was called ‘Eliot’ which is the name of its body. And it worked. It got its coffee and no one laughed and everyone saw that it had a name. When Eliot was called and it got up to get its coffee cup it felt a thrill of excitement because someone had used its name and it had answered and maybe because Eliot was a boy-name then it was a boy now?

 

But Quentin was angry. When it got back and showed Quentin the cup with its name on it, he had turned very white and then very red and then had knocked the cup out of its hand spilling hot coffee over both of them.

 

“Don’t you ever, ever use his name,” Quentin had hissed, “If you ever do anything like that again, I swear I’ll leave. Do you understand? I’ll abandon you.”

 

And then water which is called tears had leaked from his eyes and he’d left for hours and hours.

 

It doesn’t want Quentin to be angry. Ora was angry: it could feel it when it possessed her. Ora had been angry for years. And it couldn’t tell. Ora was angry and she left him. Maybe Quentin is angry too?

 

(And that’s why it can’t leave the body because what if Quentin leaves it then?)

 

So, it stops trying to name itself. Maybe there is only one name that it can have, the name that its parents gave it. Its special name.

 

As soon as it gets its memories back it’ll be able to have a name and then it can write tell it to the baristas at Starbucks and they won’t laugh because it’s a real name. And then Quentin will use its name and not call it the Monster anymore and they can be proper friends and maybe they can even have nicknames like they do on Friends.

 

(And then it remembers it has a sister and manages to find her a body because family means that people have to stay even if they don’t like each other, like Quentin and his mother.

 

And they’re together again and walking through Central Park which is the green space that they talk about on Friends, and they are holding hands, its sister taking control like she used to (it thinks). And it knows that it is safe and loved now because it has a family again so it looks up at her and says:

 

“Perhaps you could tell me…do I have a name?”

 

And for a moment.

 

It hopes.)

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm so sorry ThebanSacredBand. Next one will be fluffy I promise)  
> (maybe)  
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


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